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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Average Female Scientist

Posted by John Holbo on 08/01/07 at 11:54 PM

I just took a test to see whether I have Aspergers. Nope. I don’t. I scored a 17 - which makes sense to me, because they say that sort of score correlates with being an ‘average female scientist’. I think I would make a great average female scientist - with a little luck, and hard work.

I already knew I didn’t have Aspergers, of course, because I can’t remember phone numbers for a damn.

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I got a 26, so a little above the average math contest winner. Interesting. I have, in the past, jokingly referred to myself as an “extremely high functioning autistic”. The thing that’s kept me from seriously investigating the subject (and what kept my score from being quite a bit higher) is the fact that I have a very good social intuition. I find that I actually understand people’s emotions/motivations/etc. better than many of the people around me, though this does not translate to fluency on my part (understanding a language does not always imply speaking it.)

By on 08/02/07 at 02:30 AM | Permanent link to this comment

One point lower than J. S. Nelson.

By Joseph Kugelmass on 08/02/07 at 02:40 PM | Permanent link to this comment

13. Nowhere even near biologist.

I don’t think of myself as all that social (being the type of introvert that is enervated, rather than enlivened by too much social interaction/stimulaton). But I think the empathy + social intuition thing explains my score more than social fluency. Although there’s no distinction made here b/t social fluency on the small-scale level (one-on-one, which I’m fine with) vs. large-scale.

By Belle Lettre on 08/02/07 at 03:07 PM | Permanent link to this comment

I was about 26. I don’t remember numbers well. Changing my answers to the number questions put me in the near-Asperger’s range.

By on 08/02/07 at 05:30 PM | Permanent link to this comment

29!

By ben wolfson on 08/02/07 at 10:14 PM | Permanent link to this comment

21. I had a pretty sharp break between the questions asking about social competencies (*can* you make nice conversation, *can* you read people’s intentions, etc.: no problem) and social preferences (would you rather be social, etc: no, I’d mostly rather not.)

But that’s where it seems to me this isn’t just a scale of more Aspergery to less Aspergery. There’s another axis cutting through these questions of extroversion and introversion, where introversion does not equal “more Aspergery”.

By Timothy Burke on 08/03/07 at 09:19 AM | Permanent link to this comment

I think that probably extreme forms of Aspergers become so harmful to people that they themselves regret their condition. Nonetheless, many Aspergers traits are intrinsically good and positive things, and others are intrinsically neutral. Lots of people would be better off if they moved in the Aspergers direction.

By John Emerson on 08/03/07 at 01:14 PM | Permanent link to this comment

35: “Scores over 32 are generally taken to indicate Asperger’s Syndrome or high-functioning autism, with more than 34 an ‘extreme’ score.”

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Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Average Female Scientist

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